War and Peace : Book 03, Chapter 12

1869

People

(1828 - 1910) ~ Father of Christian Anarchism : In 1861, during the second of his European tours, Tolstoy met with Proudhon, with whom he exchanged ideas. Inspired by the encounter, Tolstoy returned to Yasnaya Polyana to found thirteen schools that were the first attempt to implement a practical model of libertarian education. (From : Anarchy Archives.) • "There are people (we ourselves are such) who realize that our Government is very bad, and who struggle against it." (From : "A Letter to Russian Liberals," by Leo Tolstoy, Au....) • "Only by recognizing the land as just such an article of common possession as the sun and air will you be able, without bias and justly, to establish the ownership of land among all men, according to any of the existing projects or according to some new project composed or chosen by you in common." (From : "To the Working People," by Leo Tolstoy, Yasnaya P....) • "You are surprised that soldiers are taught that it is right to kill people in certain cases and in war, while in the books admitted to be holy by those who so teach, there is nothing like such a permission..." (From : "Letter to a Non-Commissioned Officer," by Leo Tol....)

CHAPTER XII

Shortly after nine o’clock that evening, Weyrother drove with his plans to
Kutúzov’s quarters where the council of war was to be held. All the
commanders of columns were summoned to the commander in chief’s and with
the exception of Prince Bagratión, who declined to come, were all there at
the appointed time.

Weyrother, who was in full control of the proposed battle, by his
eagerness and briskness presented a marked contrast to the dissatisfied
and drowsy Kutúzov, who reluctantly played the part of chairman and
president of the council of war. Weyrother evidently felt himself to be at
the head of a movement that had already become unrestrainable. He was like
a horse running downhill harnessed to a heavy cart. Whether he was pulling
it or being pushed by it he did not know, but rushed along at headlong
speed with no time to consider what this movement might lead to. Weyrother
had been twice that evening to the enemy’s picket line to reconnoiter
personally, and twice to the Emperors, Russian and Austrian, to report and
explain, and to his headquarters where he had dictated the dispositions in
German, and now, much exhausted, he arrived at Kutúzov’s.

He was evidently so busy that he even forgot to be polite to the commander
in chief. He interrupted him, talked rapidly and indistinctly, without
looking at the man he was addressing, and did not reply to questions put
to him. He was bespattered with mud and had a pitiful, weary, and
distracted air, though at the same time he was haughty and self-confident.

Kutúzov was occupying a nobleman’s castle of modest dimensions near
Ostralitz. In the large drawing room which had become the commander in
chief’s office were gathered Kutúzov himself, Weyrother, and the members
of the council of war. They were drinking tea, and only awaited Prince
Bagratión to begin the council. At last Bagratión’s orderly came with the
news that the prince could not attend. Prince Andrew came in to inform the
commander in chief of this and, availing himself of permission previously
given him by Kutúzov to be present at the council, he remained in the
room.

“Since Prince Bagratión is not coming, we may begin,” said Weyrother,
hurriedly rising from his seat and going up to the table on which an
enormous map of the environs of Brünn was spread out.

Kutúzov, with his uniform unbuttoned so that his fat neck bulged over his
collar as if escaping, was sitting almost asleep in a low chair, with his
podgy old hands resting symmetrically on its arms. At the sound of
Weyrother’s voice, he opened his one eye with an effort.

“Yes, yes, if you please! It is already late,” said he, and nodding his
head he let it droop and again closed his eye.

If at first the members of the council thought that Kutúzov was pretending
to sleep, the sounds his nose emitted during the reading that followed
proved that the commander in chief at that moment was absorbed by a far
more serious matter than a desire to show his contempt for the
dispositions or anything else—he was engaged in satisfying the
irresistible human need for sleep. He really was asleep. Weyrother, with
the gesture of a man too busy to lose a moment, glanced at Kutúzov and,
having convinced himself that he was asleep, took up a paper and in a
loud, monotonous voice began to read out the dispositions for the
impending battle, under a heading which he also read out:

“Dispositions for an attack on the enemy position behind Kobelnitz and
Sokolnitz, November 30, 1805.”

The dispositions were very complicated and difficult. They began as
follows:

“As the enemy’s left wing rests on wooded hills and his right extends
along Kobelnitz and Sokolnitz behind the ponds that are there, while we,
on the other hand, with our left wing by far outflank his right, it is
advantageous to attack the enemy’s latter wing especially if we occupy the
villages of Sokolnitz and Kobelnitz, whereby we can both fall on his flank
and pursue him over the plain between Schlappanitz and the Thuerassa
forest, avoiding the defiles of Schlappanitz and Bellowitz which cover the
enemy’s front. For this object it is necessary that... The first column
marches... The second column marches... The third column marches...” and
so on, read Weyrother.

The generals seemed to listen reluctantly to the difficult dispositions.
The tall, fair-haired General Buxhöwden stood, leaning his back against
the wall, his eyes fixed on a burning candle, and seemed not to listen or
even to wish to be thought to listen. Exactly opposite Weyrother, with his
glistening wide-open eyes fixed upon him and his mustache twisted upwards,
sat the ruddy Milorádovich in a military pose, his elbows turned outwards,
his hands on his knees, and his shoulders raised. He remained stubbornly
silent, gazing at Weyrother’s face, and only turned away his eyes when the
Austrian chief of staff finished reading. Then Milorádovich looked round
significantly at the other generals. But one could not tell from that
significant look whether he agreed or disagreed and was satisfied or not
with the arrangements. Next to Weyrother sat Count Langeron who, with a
subtle smile that never left his typically southern French face during the
whole time of the reading, gazed at his delicate fingers which rapidly
twirled by its corners a gold snuffbox on which was a portrait. In the
middle of one of the longest sentences, he stopped the rotary motion of
the snuffbox, raised his head, and with inimical politeness lurking in the
corners of his thin lips interrupted Weyrother, wishing to say something.
But the Austrian general, continuing to read, frowned angrily and jerked
his elbows, as if to say: “You can tell me your views later, but now be so
good as to look at the map and listen.” Langeron lifted his eyes with an
expression of perplexity, turned round to Milorádovich as if seeking an
explanation, but meeting the latter’s impressive but meaningless gaze
drooped his eyes sadly and again took to twirling his snuffbox.

“A geography lesson!” he muttered as if to himself, but loud enough to be
heard.

Przebyszéwski, with respectful but dignified politeness, held his hand to
his ear toward Weyrother, with the air of a man absorbed in attention.
Dohktúrov, a little man, sat opposite Weyrother, with an assiduous and
modest mien, and stooping over the outspread map conscientiously studied
the dispositions and the unfamiliar locality. He asked Weyrother several
times to repeat words he had not clearly heard and the difficult names of
villages. Weyrother complied and Dohktúrov noted them down.

When the reading which lasted more than an hour was over, Langeron again
brought his snuffbox to rest and, without looking at Weyrother or at
anyone in particular, began to say how difficult it was to carry out such
a plan in which the enemy’s position was assumed to be known, whereas it
was perhaps not known, since the enemy was in movement. Langeron’s
objections were valid but it was obvious that their chief aim was to show
General Weyrother—who had read his dispositions with as much
self-confidence as if he were addressing school children—that he had
to do, not with fools, but with men who could teach him something in
military matters.

When the monotonous sound of Weyrother’s voice ceased, Kutúzov opened his
eye as a miller wakes up when the soporific drone of the mill wheel is
interrupted. He listened to what Langeron said, as if remarking, “So you
are still at that silly business!” quickly closed his eye again, and let
his head sink still lower.

Langeron, trying as virulently as possible to sting Weyrother’s vanity as
author of the military plan, argued that Bonaparte might easily attack
instead of being attacked, and so render the whole of this plan perfectly
worthless. Weyrother met all objections with a firm and contemptuous
smile, evidently prepared beforehand to meet all objections be they what
they might.

“If he could attack us, he would have done so today,” said he.

“So you think he is powerless?” said Langeron.

“He has forty thousand men at most,” replied Weyrother, with the smile of
a doctor to whom an old wife wishes to explain the treatment of a case.

“In that case he is inviting his doom by awaiting our attack,” said
Langeron, with a subtly ironical smile, again glancing round for support
to Milorádovich who was near him.

But Milorádovich was at that moment evidently thinking of anything rather
than of what the generals were disputing about.

“Ma foi!” said he, “tomorrow we shall see all that on the battlefield.”

Weyrother again gave that smile which seemed to say that to him it was
strange and ridiculous to meet objections from Russian generals and to
have to prove to them what he had not merely convinced himself of, but had
also convinced the sovereign Emperors of.

“The enemy has quenched his fires and a continual noise is heard from his
camp,” said he. “What does that mean? Either he is retreating, which is
the only thing we need fear, or he is changing his position.” (He smiled
ironically.) “But even if he also took up a position in the Thuerassa, he
merely saves us a great deal of trouble and all our arrangements to the
minutest detail remain the same.”

“How is that?...” began Prince Andrew, who had for long been waiting an
opportunity to express his doubts.

“Gentlemen, the dispositions for tomorrow—or rather for today, for
it is past midnight—cannot now be altered,” said he. “You have heard
them, and we shall all do our duty. But before a battle, there is nothing
more important...” he paused, “than to have a good sleep.”

He moved as if to rise. The generals bowed and retired. It was past
midnight. Prince Andrew went out.

The council of war, at which Prince Andrew had not been able to express
his opinion as he had hoped to, left on him a vague and uneasy impression.
Whether Dolgorúkov and Weyrother, or Kutúzov, Langeron, and the others who
did not approve of the plan of attack, were right—he did not know.
“But was it really not possible for Kutúzov to state his views plainly to
the Emperor? Is it possible that on account of court and personal
considerations tens of thousands of lives, and my life, my life,” he
thought, “must be risked?”

“Yes, it is very likely that I shall be killed tomorrow,” he thought. And
suddenly, at this thought of death, a whole series of most distant, most
intimate, memories rose in his imagination: he remembered his last parting
from his father and his wife; he remembered the days when he first loved
her. He thought of her pregnancy and felt sorry for her and for himself,
and in a nervously emotional and softened mood he went out of the hut in
which he was billeted with Nesvítski and began to walk up and down before
it.

The night was foggy and through the fog the moonlight gleamed
mysteriously. “Yes, tomorrow, tomorrow!” he thought. “Tomorrow everything
may be over for me! All these memories will be no more, none of them will
have any meaning for me. Tomorrow perhaps, even certainly, I have a
presentiment that for the first time I shall have to show all I can do.”
And his fancy pictured the battle, its loss, the concentration of fighting
at one point, and the hesitation of all the commanders. And then that
happy moment, that Toulon for which he had so long waited, presents itself
to him at last. He firmly and clearly expresses his opinion to Kutúzov, to
Weyrother, and to the Emperors. All are struck by the justness of his
views, but no one undertakes to carry them out, so he takes a regiment, a
division—stipulates that no one is to interfere with his arrangements—leads
his division to the decisive point, and gains the victory alone. “But
death and suffering?” suggested another voice. Prince Andrew, however, did
not answer that voice and went on dreaming of his triumphs. The
dispositions for the next battle are planned by him alone. Nominally he is
only an adjutant on Kutúzov’s staff, but he does everything alone. The
next battle is won by him alone. Kutúzov is removed and he is appointed...
“Well and then?” asked the other voice. “If before that you are not ten
times wounded, killed, or betrayed, well... what then?...” “Well then,”
Prince Andrew answered himself, “I don’t know what will happen and don’t
want to know, and can’t, but if I want this—want glory, want to be
known to men, want to be loved by them, it is not my fault that I want it
and want nothing but that and live only for that. Yes, for that alone! I
shall never tell anyone, but, oh God! what am I to do if I love nothing
but fame and men’s esteem? Death, wounds, the loss of family—I fear
nothing. And precious and dear as many persons are to me—father,
sister, wife—those dearest to me—yet dreadful and unnatural as
it seems, I would give them all at once for a moment of glory, of triumph
over men, of love from men I don’t know and never shall know, for the love
of these men here,” he thought, as he listened to voices in Kutúzov’s
courtyard. The voices were those of the orderlies who were packing up; one
voice, probably a coachman’s, was teasing Kutúzov’s old cook whom Prince
Andrew knew, and who was called Tit. He was saying, “Tit, I say, Tit!”

“Well?” returned the old man.

“Go, Tit, thresh a bit!” said the wag.

“Oh, go to the devil!” called out a voice, drowned by the laughter of the
orderlies and servants.

“All the same, I love and value nothing but triumph over them all, I value
this mystic power and glory that is floating here above me in this mist!”